DOOM is a word that to a certain generation of gamers is synonymous with a time when the FPS genre was truly born. DOOM inspired so many games in the 23 years since it first released that it is simply the most iconic shooter series in gaming. So when a trailer revealed that Bethesda were following up with their Wolfenstein revival with a new version of DOOM for 2016, it grabbed my attention. Could the most up to date version reclaim its mantle of king of shooters in a time when good shooters are a dime a dozen? Yes it can, and it punches you right in the face as it does it!

DOOM is the most visceral shooter I have played in recent years, there is just something about the way it delivers its most brutal version yet that links this 2016 version all the way back to the very first 1993 DOOM. The moment the main menu screen appears, the bass of the menu music hits you, its a slow pulsing build up with purpose. You can feel it in your arms as you hold the controller, like a quiet rage rising in you pushing you to go into a fight. Once in the campaign mode this sensation is turned right up to 11 in the opening minutes that never leaves you throughout.

Earth is suffering a huge energy crisis and the UAC (Union Aerospace Corporation) has set up on Mars led by its director Samuel Hayden, who transferred his mind into an android body after being diagnosed with brain cancer. Hayden and the UAC have been researching Argent energy, an energy that can only be found in Hell and following several missions to the Hell dimension, have captured both demons and recovered artefacts to help. The result is the Argent Tower, capable of syphoning this Argent energy directly from Hell. But one of Hayden’s team, Olivia Pierce, had secretly betrayed him and made a deal with the demons and opens a portal to Hell allowing the demons to invade the facility. Fortunately one of the artefacts recovered was a sarcophagus containing the infamous ‘Doom Slayer’ who was imprisoned by the demons after his last visit to hell was more of a rampage than a holiday stay. Hayden releases the Doom Slayer and that is where the player….awakes.

The very first thing you do is to smash the skull of the first thing you see, and this sets the tone for what is to come. It is not long before you grab a gun and are blowing demons apart as you make your way through the facility, now overrun with demonic forces, as you attempt to stop Pierce and close the portal to Hell. Hayden sees you as nothing more than a blunt instrument and mindless killing machine and the game successfully gives the player the sense that you are indeed a pure demon killing one man army. The music gets under your skin, you can feel the need to kill and destroy every single demon that crosses your path and the action will always put a good number of enemies in your path to brutally take out, ramping up your adrenaline as you move deeper into the facility.

Each stage is well designed to keep fighting at the core but keeping the traditional exploration aspects of the early DOOM games by having secret areas to discover and collectibles to find as well as carrying out the objectives to complete the stage. DOOM is far from the mindless simplicity of campaigns in recent years that simply require going from A to B to complete a stage. Blending the elements that made DOOM so iconic but refreshing it for a new generation for the campaign was a surprise to me, but as someone who grew up with the early days of FPS and DOOM, it is a delight to see such old school values in design and gameplay brought back.

The variety of weapons you pick up as you move through the campaign help as the scale of demonic enemies increases and with the ability to upgrade weapons to be more powerful with secondary features always ensures you have the right tools for the job. But the fighting can be ferocious and in the later stages you will literally burn through all the ammo in all your guns during a fight and you will feel as though you have just battle for your life, in one huge fight where I found myself left with only my pistol to use and being the last person standing with no shields and minor health had me pausing to take a breath, this level of action is simply the most enjoyable and rewarding shooter experience I have had in quite some time. There is real satisfaction in the combat which has a the visual delight of the ‘Glory Kills’, where getting an enemy down to their lowest health will trigger a glory kill opportunity as they will begin to flow and hitting the melee button will result in Doom Slayer putting a gun away and finishing the enemy off with his bare hands in a multiple of different execution animations. It is a succulent gameplay cocktail of new and old shooter mechanics that along with superb level design and a solid story told fluidly which make this campaign a testament to the DOOM legacy.

Along with the campaign is a MP with a huge amount of game modes from the classic game modes of team death match and control to modern twists like Freeze Tag and Warpath, the choices of game modes is vast. But I have to be honest, I was not impressed with the MP Beta that ran just before release, having being a part of the Unreal Tournament, Quake and original DOOM game generation, I found the MP to be good but not amazing. The speed of running around is indeed a refreshing feeling on a console shooter but it also feels far too imbalanced with the super shotgun or combat shotgun reigning supreme in every kill cam you have to endure. It is frantic action that really only feels playable after you have reached level 10 and have the ability to customise your own weapon load outs and collected some Hack Modules, skill boost power ups that can help show you where power ups are or to track the last person who killed you or to add armour instantly after a respawn.

That customisation continues into the customisation of your MP player, using a similar armour customisation HALO Reach, every level you reach rewards you with new cosmetic items from armour pieces, colours and pattern designs. You can customise your armour and the weapons you use to really personalise them with colours and patterns. Taunts are available should you feel the need to add that extra humiliation to the person you just killed. The sheer amount of customisation is for me the stand out feature of the MP, it is a shame that the gameplay just felt rather standard and full of cheap kills and sadly some very laggy encounters with our EU cousins.

The surprise feature of DOOM for me is by far the Snapmap map editing mode. In a weird but amazingly executed merger of HALO Forge and the intricacies of Little Big Planet, players can create their own levels and share them with the DOOM community. It really is staggering to see how deep this editor really is and you only have to play the Snapmap of other players to see just how powerful this tool is not only to use to create your own masterpiece level but if like me you would rather just enjoy what others have made, the quality of what is being shared is truly staggering. Bethesda have now started a fortnightly community stream (Twitch.tv/Bethesda) to showcase the best of the community stream and also to give tips and advice on how to use Snapmap. It is a feature that has been fully embraced by the DOOM community and with created content shareable across all platforms, this next to the campaign is just another reason to have DOOM in your collection.

DOOM reboots its iconic franchise with all the fanfare of a Last Night of the Proms finale and standing ovation. It’s loud, its brutal, its carnage delivered on a plate with pile and great gameplay and excitement as side dishes. Whilst the MP left me cold, the campaign is one of the most satisfying thrilling experiences I have had in a long while in the shooting genre. It keeps to the core values of its legacy and cranks it up to new levels for a 2016 generation. It looks amazing, the action is fast and there is just something about not having to reload your gun and to simply keep firing till the gun goes click and all the enemies are dead that is pure exhilaration. The Snapmap feature means there is always new content to try out and enjoy whilst tempting you to get creative and make your own content to share. DOOM really is the most complete shooting package you can have right now, I really can’t sing its praises enough and is an instant ‘Put in your collection’ title if you are a shooter fan.

DOOM is back, its a no nonsense take no prisoners punch in the face level FPS that connects the past and present of the FPS genre that should make all over shooters take notice. DOOM Guy is back, and if you don’t pick this up, well, you might just wake up to a BFG 9000 in your face!